James O'Toole (mobster)

James S. (Spike) O'Toole (December 7 1929 Savin Hill – December 1 1973 Revere, Massachusetts) was an Irish-American gangster from Dorchester, Massachusetts.

James was born to first generation immigrants from Birmingham, England. He was a close friend of Somerville's The Winter Hill Gang's leader James "Buddy" McLean. He was targeted for assassination by The McLaughlin Brothers gang of Charlestown, when a Cambridge gangster named Ronald Dermody fell in love with his twenty-nine year old German-English girlfriend-mistress Dorothy Barchard. Dorothy was also the stepmother of Joseph Dermody. Although James was his baptismal name he was called "Spike" by his friends. He was a close friend of Charlestown Mob member Francis X. Murray.

Dorothy Barchard is described by Howie Carr as being "the premier moll of the Boston underworld in the 1950s and 1960's". At the time of her relationship with O'Toole she was married to Richard Barchard, a little known charter member of the Winter Hill Gang. He fathered two children with Dorothy. James was a negligent father who she sued in court for back payment of child support. His wife was also allegedly involved with Joseph Barboza's criminal lawyer John E. Fitzgerald Jr. who was later maimed by a car bomb. It is said that his wife received a telephone call, in which the caller indicated that if Dorothy did not stop associating "with that guy" (O'Toole), that she and her children could be murdered.

Fitzgerald advised that, in addition, his wife received a telephone call in which the caller told his wife about the relationship between he and Dorothy. Fitzgerald was asked who made this statement to him, and the caller said, "I am not going to divulge the identity of this person, but I have given the identity of this party to Jimmy O'Toole, and he will probably be in trouble when he gets out of jail." Fitzgerald also said that when he investigated to see who made the incriminating telephone calls to his wife and to Dorothy Barchard, the Patriarca crime family tried to lead him to believe that it was O'Toole's friends; that he checked with O'Toole, and this was not so.

Supposedly at some point in the 1960s or early 1970s Dermody made a deal with one of the McLaughlin brothers, George McLaughlin, that if the brothers would kill O'Toole, he (Dermody) would kill McLean. Ronald Dermody, just the week prior to his grisly slaying shot James multiple times while walking down Freeport Street in Dorchester. This attempted shooting led him to be hospitalized for more than a month. Dermody was later murdered in retribution for the failed gangland slaying.

He had been receiving death threats since 1963. In December of 1964 Spike and Francis X. Murray received telegrams the day before they were set to be released saying, "You will receive the same benefits of Harold." The annonymous telegram sender was referring to mob associate Harold Hannon, a 54-year old criminal associate whose bound body was found floating in the Boston Harbor the previous August. In September after Spike and Francis were released, there was an attempted shooting of Murray as he drove along the Southeast Expressway in South Boston. The shooter was never identified and his intended death sentence was never carried out unlike his friend O'Toole. James would later be arrested for another crime and served time in Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Cedar Junction as an accessory after the fact in the murder of Dorchester bank clerk, William Sheridan. Sheridan was shot to death by George McLaughlin while in the middle of a armed robbery. In December 1973, O'Toole (who had survived many assassination attempts) was run over by gangland assassin John Martorano while leaving Edward G. Connors' saloon in South Boston.

References

* "His Accuser Absent, O'Toole Out on Bail" PM Boston Globe March 16, 1965 by Jerome Sullivan
* "O'Toole Murdered Gangland-Style in Dorchester" The Herald Advertiser August 2, 1973 by Earl Marchand

External links

* [http://thebrothersbulger.com/James%20(Spike)%20O'Toole.htm James (Spike) O'Toole]